


Until Next Time

by SoundandColor



Category: Scream (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Friends to Lovers, On the Run, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-14 11:34:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13006923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoundandColor/pseuds/SoundandColor
Summary: Emma holds out her hand and that’s all it takes.That’s all it ever takes.





	Until Next Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [zagirlfriends](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zagirlfriends/gifts).



 

“Is this a lez thing?” Nina’s holding the front of Audrey’s shirt, pulling her closer over the console between them. “The nonstop talking you do? It makes me really happy I’m straight, is all.” The words are harsh, but her smile is almost sweet.

 

It’s what Audrey thinks of the days after Nina outs her. After Nina’s murder. After Piper killed her. All that blood and it was just the beginning.

 

“Look at me!” She orders and Audrey snaps back to the present, Emma’s hand is gripping her shoulder tightly.

 

“We need to get out of here,” she mutters, trying to tug Audrey toward the door. “They’ll never believe he set us up. All that evidence he planted—”

 

Audrey drops the chain and glances around the room. He’s dead. She knows it, but still doesn’t believe. Even with the hole in the center of his forehead. Even with the ever-widening pool of blood they’re standing in.

 

“We have to go!” Emma screams when Audrey doesn’t move. “He set all of this up! They won’t believe us. They won’t believe we had nothing to do with it!” She’s rambling, dragging Audrey down the wide entry steps now, but Audrey doesn’t remember leaving the room Kiernan had her chained-up in. She’s got to get herself together. This isn’t the first time she’s seen someone die. Living in this place, it probably wouldn’t be the last.

 

“Emma, stop!” she finally says. “We can’t just leave, that’ll make us look even more guilty.”

 

“It’s the only thing we can do.” She says flatly, walking quickly out of the entrance and opening Kiernan’s truck door. She gets into the driver’s seat and they’re both quiet for a moment. Listening for sirens in the distance. “We’ll go and find out more about Paige and Ms. Lang. Try to find proof that Kiernan knew her and clear our own names.”

 

“What about our friends?” Audrey lowers her voice. “You can’t just leave your mom—”

 

“Do you want to go to jail?” she asks. “They have evidence on us, they probably think we killed that cop and escaped custody. Do you really think they’re going to help us?”

 

Audrey shakes her head, “Emma—"

 

“We have to get out of here now! Don’t make me go alone.” Emma takes a breath, her eyes pleading. “I don’t want to leave you.” She holds out her hand and that’s all it takes.

 

That’s all it ever takes.

  
\---

  
They keep to the side streets on their drive out of Lakewood.

 

They make sure not to go a mile over the speed limit and as soon as they cross the county line, the girls leave the keys in the ignition and dump Kiernan’s truck on the side of a service road. From there, they walk at least half a mile to the nearest convenience store. The girl behind the counter doesn’t even bother to look up when they walk in. The TV on the counter is on mute and turned to the local news. Audrey’s relieved not to see their faces.  

 

“How do you get to the bus terminal?”

 

Her bored gaze flicks toward them, then she takes a deep, annoyed breath. “Catch the #30 to the end of the line.” She looks back down at her phone. “You can’t miss it.”

 

She’s right. They ride the bus for a half hour and the terminal is right there when they get off.

 

The girls just move around the first few days. Try to keep a low profile and pay for everything with cash. The Children’s Home would have been the perfect place to start their search for evidence against Piper and Kiernan, but going back to Lakewood is not an option.

 

“We have to make a decision here,” Audrey says over burgers in another roadside motel in another county. “We’re going to run out of money soon.”

 

The other girl shakes her head. “I’m completely lost. All I could focus on was getting out of there and now…” She looks exhausted. Absolutely gutted. Audrey’s been through hell these past two years, but she can’t imagine what it’s been like to be Emma. “I don’t even know where to begin looking to try and clear our names.”

 

Audrey does. They’ll start in Atlanta.

  
\---

  
It takes them a little less than a week to get there. They buy train tickets going in opposite directions and hitchhike to the next town. They buy Amtrak tickets to any random city in the southeast, duck off the train at the halfway point and wait it out in a motel for a few days. They’re the top story on CNN, MSNBC and Fox News for the first two weeks after they make a run for it. Half the world thinks they’re murderers, the other half thinks they’re idiots. Everyone thinks they know more than what they pretend to.

 

Emma doesn’t speak much during their long trip south and Audrey doesn’t try and draw her out. There’s nothing to say.

  
  
\---

 

They hit the ground running when they finally reach their destination. Their first stop is the library. Tina and Eli have a house here, Tina might even be in town after running away from Lakewood. They find a computer that someone never logged out of and a quick google search gives them the information they need.

 

Audrey figures out the bus route, and they make their way across town. She watches as the grass in the yards gets taller and the houses get shabbier the further they go. They reach their stop and Eli’s house is a block away.

 

It’s ranch style, red brick, with a green carport attached. The screen door flies open and slams shut with the breeze. It looks like it’s been empty for a while. Audrey knows instantly that Tina isn’t here. Tina, most likely, never came back. If Kieran’s the one who told Emma about her disappearance, Tina’s probably been dead for quite a while now.

 

Audrey glances at Emma from the corner of her eye. “I think we could probably go around back and break a window to get in.”

 

Emma ignores her, walks up to the front door, gives it a hard shove and walks right in when it creaks open.

 

“Or we could do that,” Audrey murmurs, then makes sure they’re alone before following her friend in. The girls make their way to the back of the house. They stop in one room, obviously a boy’s, but the wrong one. Posters of girls in skimpy bathing suits and muscle cars cover every surface. Not exactly Kiernan’s style. They move to the next room, decorated in lavenders with an en-suite attached. That probably belonged to Tina. The last door on the right opens into a minimally decorated space. A guitar leans against one wall, a large dresser takes up the opposite.

 

They glance at one another, and begin tearing the room apart. They search the obvious places: Behind the headboard, under the bed, in the closet. They pull all the drawers out of the dresser, toss the mattress and box spring, search for loose floorboards.

 

They’ve about given up when Audrey sees the sharp edge of something poking out from underneath one of the dresser drawers. She reaches for it, turns the drawer over onto its back, and there is a photo of Kiernan and Piper neatly taped underneath.

 

They stare down at it dumbly and, for a moment Audrey thinks she can go home now, that this nightmare is finally over. But this isn’t a smoking gun. The most they can hope for is that it might get the cops to look in a direction other than theirs for the killer. They go back to the library, scan the photo and send it to Emma’s mother.

 

She’ll have to do the rest.

 

\---

 

They get a bottle of Boone’s Farm and order a pizza to celebrate. “We’re not home free,” Audrey says, filling her paper cup and trying to hide the hope she feels. Emma rolls her eyes and jumps up from her seat next to Audrey on the bed.

 

“No happiness allowed, got ya!”

 

“I didn't—’”

 

Emma laughs, “I know. I’m gonna go take a shower.”

 

Audrey nods, lays back and closes her eyes. She’s falling asleep when she hears the bathroom door creak. “Em?” She calls without bothering to look up.

 

There’s no answer and suddenly she’s on high alert. There’s someone else is in the room. Someone found them, another killer that’s been waiting in the wings. She bolts upright and is shocked when the only thing she sees is her friend. Audrey doesn't even react for a moment. Then she lets her gaze wander.

 

Emma’s naked. Audrey has always wanted this, _always_ , but she’s never dared to hope for it and that part of her refuses to believe this is real. That this is something Emma would ever want from her.  “What are you doing?”

 

Emma raises her eyebrows, “What do you think?”

 

“You’ve never been interested.” Her voice is sharp, bitter, even though she has no right to be.  

 

“I was scared. Just like you were.”  Audrey studies her, afraid to move, then reaches out because she can’t stop herself. Emma sidesteps her with a smile. “I’ve got something else for you. Close your eyes.”

 

“Not possible,” Audrey says honestly. Not when everything she’s ever wanted is in front of her.

 

Emma smiles, “Please.”

 

She sighs, but does what the other girl asks. There’s no sound for a moment. No movement whatsoever. Then Emma says, “you can look now.”

 

She’s still gloriously naked when Audrey opens her eyes, and she’s mesmerized by Emma’s skin. She lets her gaze meander this time. Her toes are painted pink and just starting to chip around the edges. The manicured thatch of hair between her thighs is a shade darker than the hair on her head. Her fingers are threaded together over her stomach, the nails bitten and bare. She’s got a thin gold chain resting at her throat. She’s wearing a Brandon James mask.

 

Audrey starts with a jerk at the realization. “What is that?” She asks. She already knows.

 

“It was behind the seat in Kiernan’s truck. After Piper, they started showing up everywhere. You remember?”

  
Audrey sits up straighter and tries to steady her breathing. “Take that thing off.”

 

Emma walks closer to the bed instead. “Do you have one?”

 

“No,” she says too quickly. “Why would I?”

 

There’s no proof, no way she could possibly know, but Emma is smiling. She feels that cord of electricity between them, the one that pulled them together in the first place. The one she felt crackle with new life in an abandoned Girls Home when they looked at one another and decided Kiernan had to die.

 

“You said you loved me.” Her voice is strange. Half of that is her face being covered, but there’s something else too. Something that’s usually there is missing. She’s cold. So far away Audrey has no idea where to even begin looking. “You said I hurt you and that’s why you went to Paige. Why you brought all of this down on our heads.”

 

Audrey studies her for a moment. “I didn’t know she was your sister.”

 

Emma wouldn’t hurt her, Audrey’s sure of that, but the girl is scarily blank behind the mask. Worse than Piper, worse than Kiernan. She takes another step forward and Audrey fights the urge to back away. “Do you still love me?” Emma asks, then climbs into bed next to her.

 

She should stop this and try to talk about what happened again if Emma needs to, but even behind that terrible face, this is still her best friend. Still the girl she’s dreamed of for years. Those are still her breasts and her hands and her mouth and Audrey lost control of this situation a long time ago. She licks her lips. “What?”

 

“Do you still want me?”

 

Audrey tells the truth because there’s no point in lying. “I never stopped.”

 

Emma stares at her before she pulls off the mask, and that warmth Audrey missed so much that it turned her bitter is back in full force. Her smile is shy as she takes Audrey’s hand and puts it on the curve of her breast.

 

“Sorry.” She throws the mask off the bed and they snuggle closer. “I don’t know why I did that.”

 

Audrey doesn’t question her further, she doesn’t want to. “Kiss me,” she says instead.

 

Emma does.

  
  
\---

 

They keep moving, they keep searching. A week passes, then a month, when Emma’s burner phone finally rings.

  
  
“They know the truth. About Kiernan an—and Piper. They know.” Ms. Duvall takes a breath and Audrey can hear the smile in her voice. “Come home.”

  
  
\---

 

People don’t believe they’re innocent, exactly, but there’s no real proof that they’re guilty either. The cops have to let them go, but they make sure to keep them in sight. There's suddenly a cop car patrolling outside of Audrey's house every other night, a policemen stationed outside of the Grindhouse cafe and the high school. It should annoy her. Mostly, it makes her feel a little safer.

 

Noah and Brooke both leave for college later that year.

 

Audrey fills out applications, gets help from Emma with her essays and helps the other girl decide between the east and west coasts. In the meantime, they get jobs, eat Sunday dinner with Emma’s mother and fall into the rhythm of Lakewood. As time passes, they stop discussing moving away. They rent a place together. They get a dog.

 

“I knew it,” Brooke says eyeing the two of them when she comes back home for break. Noah just smiles.

  
\---

 

Then, for about a year, things are mostly quiet. No serial killings, no strangers moving to town. Emma and Audrey go about their lives until Landy’s book comes out.

  
  
Emma storms in and throws it onto their bed. “Did you read what she wrote about me? About us?”

  
Audrey glances down at the hardcover, _Thicker Than Water: How two Sisters and a Secret Destroyed a Town_. She makes a noise of acknowledgment and continues sorting out her video equipment. The therapist they make her see recommended she get back into making documentaries. She said that if she didn’t like the way others were telling her story, she should regain control of the narrative and tell it herself.

 

“It’s not right.” Emma’s pacing now, wringing her hands. “It’s not okay for someone to just take our lives, what we went through, and bring it all back up so they can sell a book!”

 

“You’re right.”

 

“The reporters will be back now,” she goes on. “Like when that podcast did a series on us and all those murder tourists showed up and harassed us for months! We should sue her,” she said loudly and groaned in frustration. “We should—"

 

“I lied that first night,” Audrey says out of nowhere. She’s careful to make sure she never looks away from the equipment she’s sorting. She’s careful that there’s no inflection in her voice. “About the mask. I lied.”

 

When Audrey turns and meets her gaze… Emma knows. She knows. But she doesn’t look afraid or disgusted or ashamed or shocked, she looks as beautiful as ever. Her face sweet and open, that cord of electricity that runs between them thrums.

  
  
\---

  
  
In the back of their closet (stuffed behind winter sweaters, balled up jeans, a racquet ball set Emma hasn’t touched since 7th grade and three rolls of Christmas wrapping paper) there are two masks.

  
They only wear them some of the time.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for checking this over for me, Elfgrandfather.


End file.
